A.
Only once, in Episode 21 (of season three), "The Dawn Patrol",
when Ryan goes to Albuquerque to find his estranged mother, and invite her
to his high school graduation.

While there, he stays at the "La Crescenta" hotel. We see an
establishing shot of the hotel at night, and later we see the inside of
his hotel room.

He meets a cute
waitress named Chloe at his Mom's diner,
and they have a brief fling in his hotel room.

Later, his mother
& Chloe come to his hotel room so his Mom can show him the dress
she bought for his graduation. He disappoints her by telling her that he's
going to just skip the graduation ceremony - she is hurt when she realizes that he is ashamed
of her.

Q.
What is it actually in real life?

A. It's a real
hotel, but nowhere near Albuquerque.

Q.
Where can I find it in real life?

A. It's actually
the Crowne Plaza Hotel Los Angeles International Airport (LAX),
at 5985 Century Blvd., next to LAX, in Los Angeles. You'll find it on the north side of Century Blvd, between Sepulveda (on
the west) and Aviation (on the east). The airport is located just west
of Inglewood, CA, at the west end of the Century (105) Freeway.

(There are several
Crowne Plaza hotels in the L.A. area, including one at the Redondo Beach
Marina, right across from two other O.C. locations, the Balboa
Lighthouse restaurant and the Newport Yacht
Club.)

Here is a map
link with the exact location of the LAX hotel's location.
And here is an aerial
photo from Live Local.

Q.
How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A. I thought
I recognized this hotel as one of the hotels near LAX (Los Angeles
International Airport), but I wasn't sure which one it was. So I just
Googled for images of "hotel" and "LAX" and looked
for a few key clues visible in the establishing shot (at the top of this
page): the V-shape, the wavy hotel logo, the windows, the unusual street
lights... After going through a few pages of photos, I ran right into a photo the
Crowne Plaza. I double checked by viewing a few more photos of the
hotel, and matched up all of the key features, including the street lights
and that wavy logo...